How to Easily Communicate Chord Progressions with the Nashville Number System

Songwriters, guitar players, and Nashville. That’s a tight-knit trio. Nashville holds a long tradition of writing sessions, jams, open mics, studio dates, and songs getting passed on from player to player. It makes sense that a shortcut system to convey chord progressions efficiently would emerge from the city. Neal Matthews, part of the singing group the Jordanaires and a guitarist himself, is credited with developing such a system in the mid-1950s: the Nashville number system. 

Maybe you’ve heard about the system, but you’re only casually acquainted with it. You might have seen guitarists—or singers, pianists, or bassists—flashing their fingers onstage to send cues to other musicians and let them know the next chord. I was delighted to see Vince Gill doing this at a massive jam at a Nashville NAMM show some years back. The stage, and probably a large percentage of the audience, was full of great players, all understanding the code being signaled. Here’s what it’s all about. 

Think Do Re MiLike so many areas of music theory study, the Nashville number system starts with a scale. Each note in a major scale is numbered from 1 through 7. 

do re mi fa sol la ti
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Each note in the scale can be the root of a chord. In traditional harmony, Roman numerals are used to identify chords—I, ii, iii, IV, V, etc., with lowercase for minor chords. In jazz harmonic analysis, the Roman numerals are often all uppercase with chord qualities indicated: Imaj7, IIm7, IIIm7, IVmaj7, V7, and so on. 

The Nashville number system uses Arabic numbers for quick and easy recognition. The seven chords found in a major scale are labeled 1, 2-, 3-, 4, 5, 6-, and 7°. Dashes are common for minor chords, but you might also see 2m. Diminished is shown with a small circle (°), as in other systems of notation. 

Explore Common ProgressionsWoody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” is a well-known example of a 1–4–5 progression. In the key of G, 1–4–5 is G–C–D, a common guitar-friendly progression. Laying out the chords measure by measure for someone to follow is kept simple by giving each number its own measure. Here’s how this song would look for a chord player:

4 1 5 1    4 1 5 1 

Notice that the song doesn’t start on the first chord of the key (the 1 chord). This number chart translates to these chords in G:

C G D G   C G D G

A space is left to show logical phrasing, in this case four measures at a time. Since the goal is always to make things easy to read for the player learning the chord progression on sight, it is helpful to leave spaces between what would probably be lines of music on a page. 

Pick a KeyFor any number of reasons, songs will often need to be played in different keys. Using the Nashville number system makes this quick and easy. If you’d rather sing or play this song in the key of D, use the same numbers shown above:

4 1 5 1    4 1 5 1 

Now match the chords in the key of D to these numbers:

G D A D    G D A D 

This chart shows five common guitar keys and their associated chords by numbers:

1 2- 3- 4 5 6- 7°

C Dm Em F G Am B°

G Am Bm C D Em F#°

D Em F#m G A Bm C#°

A Bm C#m D E F#m G#°

E F#m G#m A B C#m D#°

The 5 chord is often 57 or dominant 7. Our song example in the key of E could look like this: 

4 1 57 1 4 1 57 1 

A E B7 E A E B7 E 

Know When to ChangeChords don’t always fall neatly into one measure each. To show a new measure without a change of chord, simply show the same chord. “Oh My Darling, Clementine” would look like this:

  1 1 1 5  5 1 5 1 

Or to reharmonize it a little:

  1 1 1 5  2- 6- 57 1 

“Skip to My Lou,” on the other hand, could be fancied up to have more than one chord per measure. In that case, underline the numbers to indicate which chords are in the same measure:

1 2- 3- b37    2- 57 2- 57 

In the key of C, the chords would be C–Dm–Em–Eb7 in one measure followed by Dm–G7–Dm–G7 in the next measure. 

If there is more than one chord in a measure but they are not evenly divided by beats, you’ll see dots or lines counting the beats:

1 . . b37  2- . 57 .  

Or: 

C / / Eb7  Dm / G7 / 

See the SignsWinging it gets easier if you have someone giving signals with their fingers like a catcher in a baseball game. The luxury of seeing a chart ahead of time is not always possible. Maybe there’s no chart to look at onstage. Follow the leader and watch the cues as they hold up one finger for 1, two fingers for 2, etc. Use your ears carefully in this scenario. You’ll want to listen for chord qualities that are easy to show on a page but not as easy on the stage. 

One finger to three fingers could mean C to Em, since that is the diatonic, expected chord. But non-diatonic chords (those outside of the key) are common, too. C to E7, for example, are the opening chords to “All of Me.” With experience, you’ll hear that the E in this case sounds dominant while three fingers tell you that E is the root. 

Flat CitySongs don’t always stick to diatonic chords. Some non-diatonic chords are so commonly heard that they don’t sound out of context at all. Think of the bridge of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” When Stephen Stills comes to the “Tell it like it is” part, that chord is out of the key. Played in the key of E, the chords in that section are: 

D /// D/// A/// A/// 

D/// D/// A/// A/// 

E/// E/// 

The natural seventh in the key of E is D#, so D is a flatted seventh. With the Nashville number system, the progression would be:

 b7 b7 4 4    b7 b7 4 4    1 1 

It’s good ear training to try to recognize chords by the numbers when you hear them. For example, once you know that the Jimmy Webb song “Up, Up and Away” starts with 1 1 b7 b7, you’ll know it when you hear it forever more. And who could forget the opening riff to “Sweet Home Alabama”? 

D /// C/// G/// 

1 b7 4

The flat three chord is also common in popular music. The Beatles song “Here, There, and Everywhere” features that interesting Bb in the intro.

G / Bm/  Bb///  Am/ D/

Shown in numbers, that is:

1 3 b3 2 5

Get two guitar players together and give only one of them a capo. Both players can play in the same key as long as they are following the number system. If looking at the piano player is no help and you can’t see the bass player’s hands, a number chart will keep everyone on the same page—the whole point of the Nashville system.